Enhancing E-Commerce Support for a Global Cosmetics Leader in APAC
Executive Summary
A global cosmetics powerhouse partnered with Alphanet to revolutionize the support and maintenance of its e-commerce operations across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Facing escalating customer expectations, complex regional operations, and platform performance limitations, the client required a dependable and scalable support framework. Alphanet delivered a comprehensive solution tailored to the client’s Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Demandware) platform, leading to improved platform stability, faster issue resolution, increased sales performance, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Client Background
The client is one of the largest multinational cosmetics companies, with a vast product portfolio spanning skincare, makeup, fragrance, and haircare brands. As a top-tier player in the beauty industry, digital commerce plays a critical role in their global strategy. The Asia Pacific region represents one of their most dynamic and high-growth markets, requiring localized support and high-performing digital experiences to meet consumer demand.
Business Challenge
Despite having a strong e-commerce presence in APAC, the client faced mounting operational and technical obstacles that threatened customer satisfaction and online sales. Key challenges included:
- Inconsistent site performance and accessibility across APAC markets.
- Inefficient site management that limited sales potential.
- Lack of robust operational support for business and IT teams.
- Delayed implementation of new features on existing Salesforce Commerce Cloud sites.
- Absence of a clear SLA structure and efficient ticket resolution process.
- Slow and costly change management, bug resolution, and enhancements.
- Fragmented customer experience due to unresolved issues.
- Ineffective coordination across support levels and regional teams.
These roadblocks impacted business continuity, operational efficiency, and customer trust—necessitating immediate intervention.
Solution Overview
To address these challenges, Alphanet implemented Salesforce Commerce Cloud via a structured, SLA-driven e-commerce Support and Maintenance framework across all APAC sites. This approach provided a blend of proactive and reactive support services built around best-in-class ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) processes, with specific attention to:
- Non-Discretionary Services: Daily maintenance, defect resolution, hotfix deployment, and issue analysis.
- Discretionary Services: Minor technical improvements and enhancements under 16 hours.
- Major Release Integration: Seamless transition of upgrades into production support.
- Ticket Process Management: Defined, prioritized workflows for issue tracking and resolution.
- Multi-Level Support (L1–L3): From local helpdesks to expert engineering teams.
- Localized Support Hours + 24/7 On-call: Ensuring regional responsiveness and global business continuity.
- Monitoring & Maintenance: Proactive system health checks and preventative tasks.
- Cross-team Collaboration: Coordination across internal stakeholders and external vendors.
- Tooling & Documentation: Jira, Confluence, and Git-based version control and release management.
Implementation Process
Alphanet followed a disciplined and strategic implementation approach based on the ITIL framework:
- Structured Transition Planning
- Seamless knowledge transfer from incumbent teams.
- Defined onboarding plan and alignment on SLA/KPI metrics.
- Multi-Level Support Design
- L0–L3 model segmented by expertise and task complexity.
- Assignment of roles for functional, technical, and operational coverage.
- Severity-based Prioritization
- Sev1–Sev3 hierarchy ensured that business-impacting issues were fast-tracked.
- Response and resolution times tied directly to impact levels.
- Proactive Maintenance & Monitoring
- Implementation of regular daily, monthly, and quarterly tasks.
- Continuous log review, error monitoring, and job tracking.
- Release and Change Management
- Integration with release cycles via Jira Planning.
- Functional regression testing and documentation with each deployment.
- Communication and Collaboration
- Centralized documentation and status reporting via Confluence.
- Real-time updates and tracking through a dedicated support portal and escalation matrix.
Results and Impact
Alphanet’s implementation led to improvements across critical areas of the client’s APAC e-commerce business:
Impact Area | Outcome |
Customer Experience | Improved site uptime, stability, and speed, enhancing shopper satisfaction and retention. |
Sales Performance | Higher conversion rates due to fewer errors, better UX, and timely feature rollouts. |
Operational Efficiency | Streamlined workflows for support requests, faster bug fixes, and reduced IT overhead. |
Accountability | Clearly defined SLAs and KPIs provided visibility into performance and ensured accountability. |
Issue Resolution Time | Accelerated ticket turnaround through structured prioritization and dedicated support tiers. |
Business Continuity | 24/7 on-call support for critical incidents minimized disruptions during peak sales events. |
Team Collaboration | Unified process across countries and departments led to faster issue triage and resolution. |
Scalability & Growth | Stable foundation to support future expansion, new product rollouts, and system upgrades. |
Alphanet’s focus on proactive support, rapid issue resolution, and continuous improvement helped the client establish a solid operational backbone to enhance customer experience, support revenue growth, and maintain market leadership in one of the most competitive digital commerce regions in the world.